Ben Spratt

Matthew Dellavedova praised his Australia teammates for showing restraint in trying to avoid the Philippines brawl that brought a premature end to their FIBA World Cup qualifier at the start of July.

Punches were thrown and a chair was launched as a melee continued on and off court in the third quarter of the game, with nine Philippines players ejected.

Australia, by contrast, had just four players dismissed, as the Bucks guard encouraged visiting players to stay on the bench and ensure they would not be punished for their involvement.

"[The brawl] is disappointing and not something that has ever been seen before in basketball," Dellavedova said. "I can't really say too much because of the investigation.

"It's very tough [to stay on the bench] but that's the rules. We didn't fully know the extent of what was going on. It's still tough to know what happened and not have left the bench.

"In the long run, it was the right thing to do, as tough as it was. By not leaving the bench I think everyone showed a lot of restraint in pretty extreme circumstances.

We were talking about it for 2 years + glad we got to pull on the Green & Gold together loved it @thonmaker !! I’m sad that your first experience with the Boomers ended that way but many more brighter experiences ahead pic.twitter.com/j7jKcqh6oy

"There's so much positive stuff happening in Australian basketball that it's really, I would say, a blip on the radar.

"Ryan Broekhoff just signed a two-year deal after having a great European career. I was trying to get him over there a couple years earlier. So he's going well, there's a lot of boys going well in Sum [NBA Summer] League.

"The Opals just signed a new sponsor, I think we've got nine NBA boys now, the Opals' World Cup is coming up, I think seven NBA-NBL preseason games. So there's a lot of exciting stuff happening in Australian basketball.

"Then you've got the U.S. games coming up next year which everyone's looking forward to. There probably hasn't been a better time in Australia basketball that I can remember."